When the Kansas Jayhawks won the 1988 Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship I was a graduate teaching assistant and debate coach at the University of Kansas. I used to see Danny Manning in the Wescoe Cafeteria almost daily. It had been a very up and down season and the expectations were low by Kansas standards.

I have never seen the 1988 championship game in which Kansas defeated Oklahoma, 83-79. While my wife was at home with our son who had been born two weeks earlier, I drove a 16-passenger university van to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for the 1988 CEDA National Tournament. We listened to the game on the radio as we drove across Kansas. We pulled into Lawrence just as the game ended and students were pouring into the streets headed for Mount Oread and downtown Lawrence for an all-night party. It took forever to drop each of the debaters at their dorm or apartment.

I got up early the next morning to go teach class and return the van to the motor pool only to find out that classes had been canceled.

Classes are canceled at KU today. I was unable to convince my boss that I should get the day off, too.

Rock Chalk! Jayhawk! KU!